Children Of War
by Hiatus-Aren't-Hiakus
Summary: The story of Ninde and Gold-Eye's children, and the life after the first war. Sorry, bad at summaries. Please R&R. Rated T for swearing violence mild gore. Genre and Rating may change. Back and Beta-ed! :
1. Prologue

Prologue: Shade

_There were ghosts everywhere. _

_She didn't know how she knew they were ghosts, but she knew that somehow, when she finally opened her eyes from the vision, they wouldn't be alive in her world. _

_Ghosts and creatures._

_Horrible, horrible creatures that her brain couldn't recognize. Taller than a human, their skin stretched as if the bones underneath weren't suited to that skin. As if the skin didn't belong to them. Like stretching canvas over too large a frame - and their eyes, too, so dead and lifeless, like they'd been stolen too. Creatures made of patchwork parts of humans. _

_What kind of future was this?_

_There was a clicking noise in the background, growing louder, steadily. The great spider shifted it's weight from foot to metal foot, foreboding and like a blot against the dark sky._

_The clicking grew louder._

_There was something happening between the spider and the creatures, she could sense it. Like a negotiation or an argument. _

_The clicking grew louder._

_There was a bang and a scream, and then black._

"Ella?"


	2. Chapter 1: Ella

"Ella?"

She awoke to the sound of her brother's voice, and the sensation of someone shaking her shoulders. The room swam into view lazily before her azure blue eyes. The evening sky filtering through the cream coloured blinds of the window, hanging ragged and worn off the top of the frame. It cast a light on her body, flat against the worn and tatty, thin patchwork rug. The bare floorboards were uncomfortable underneath her, old and almost polished with footprints. A collection of small objects and mementoes cluttered the tiny window-ledge above her buzzing head – smiling faces stared down at her from behind glass frames, snapshots from the past. Colourful glass and pottery vases in different shades of a childish blue held wilting lilies and assorted flora that welcomed the sunlight. The walls around were a creamy, pale orange, warm and comforting with a faint, scribbled pattern of something in Latin.

She could hear, distantly, outside, the chirps and daily calls of birds sitting outside her window, the sound of a car occasionally passing, and the tap dripping in the second floor bathroom downstairs. Experimentally, she moved her foot and hit one of the several pairs of shoes that were strewn around the room, separated from their partners, ranging from boots to trainers. Her vision swam and bounced shakily, and she turned to focus on the stagnant glasses of water that sat on groaning and full bookcases, the bubbles at the edges of the glass rising to the surface silently as she watched. Well-thumbed titles such as 'The Magic Toyshop', 'Small Island' and 'The Glass Menagerie' adorned the shelves.

She blinked, recognising the familiar room, which had obviously survived many years of wear and tear – its contents relatively new in comparison to the worn, hastily wallpapered walls. Crayon drawings still marked the walls, just above toddler-height, the scrawling of an vivid and possibly overactive imagination adorning the parts of the room casually hidden by mis-matched furniture. Ella remembered, slowly, that behind a termite riddled wardrobe lurked a sketchy crayon doodle of something furry and green, dripping with some sort of concoction between slime and ectoplasm, yellow eyes large and leering, a dreamy looking nightmare. Something from one of her visions.

She rolled onto her back again, blinking up at him as he stared back down at her, concerned. She smirked – he always was the sensitive one. "Drum, I'm fine, I'm fine." She pushed him back and got up, brushing herself off and shaking the last remnants of the vision from her eyes, trying to forget the creatures that lurked, not only behind her wardrobe, but in her mind. She smiled. These visions were hardly of Narnia. Blinking, she swept away images of mutant lions to see her mother appear in the doorway, a concerned look in her eyes, doctor's scrubs and attending lab-coat glaringly white. She smiled, then moved forwards to embrace her daughter.

"What did you see? You were out for half an hour, shaking like mad!" Drum interrupted, shifting across the floor to turn around. Ella shivered, unwilling to let her memory go back to the vision. That spider..was it a spider? Crouching so predatorily over..something. Her memory of the vision was beginning to fade. As much as she hated it, Ella fought to remember everything. Ninde always wanted detailed accounts of all her visions.

"Vision Journal," she murmured, concentrating as Drum passed the leather bound, worn, and old vision journal - her twelfth to be exact. Thick pages flipped through her fingers as she grasped the ink pen and started to scribe details of the vision down in her tight, muted script. She handed it back to her mother, who gripped it tightly and started to read, a frown between her azure eyes. "It was so real – there was that spider again – is it a spider?" The door slammed downstairs. Drum got up.

"Dad's home – I'll go get him." Her brother stood up, giving the journal a quick, worried glance as he headed towards the stairs. Eventually only the noise of his shoes on the floorboards was representative of him.

"Mum?" Ninde had sat back, a unreadable expression on her face. "What is it?" Ninde seized the golden locket around her neck that was ever-present in Ella's memory of her childhood. It was a simple trinket, but cradling the golden locket's pretty heart was a jet black shiny spider, its eight legs gripping the locket's sides, seizing the heart's core. It haunted Ella, that spider. Sometimes she dreamed it crawled off the locket and crawled all over her.

"Ella, I need you to take this." Ninde's voice was urgent – she half-turned to see the figure of her husband in the doorway as Ella reluctantly took the pendant, closing her hand around it tightly. "Gold-Eye, it's happened. We need to take them to Jackie, she'll know what to do – have you got her number?"

Gold-Eye nodded his head before digging in his suit jacket pockets, pulling out his phone and hitting speed-dial. Ella sat up straighter, feeling more present than before.

"What's going on? What's happening?" The locket bounced her palm. "Mum?"

"Wait, Ella." Ninde raised her thumb to her mouth, as she'd seen her do many times. Ninde's eyes went blank, and then widened as she pulled out of it.

"They're at the warehouse," she informed Gold-Eye, who was pacing, trying to get a signal, and nodded. "Mara's there too. Let's get going."

She pulled Ella up and started off down the stairs that creaked as her feet hit the boards. Drum followed, ushered by his father, bewildered, as they started to lock up the house and push their kids into their coats and towards the door.

It was a fairly sunny early winter morning, the cold air swirling around them as Ninde began to walk fast and determinedly in a unfamiliar direction. Ella shivered and pulled her coat closer around her as Drum re-adjusted his vividly blue scarf, the one that matched his eyes. Ella and Drum both had Ninde's eyes – gold was a recessive gene colour – and her pretty, mocha coloured skin. Ella had a mixture of Gold-Eye's browny-blonde hair, slightly curly and shoulder length. Her mouth stretched into a smile as she watched Drum fiddle with the buttons on his coat, and she pushed him along after Gold-Eye and Ninde.

"Mum, where are we going?" Ella asked, feeling five years old again.

"What's wrong?" Ella pulled Drum with her in an effort to catch up to them.

"We'll explain when we get there," Ninde said tersely, looking to Gold-Eye. "Where were you this morning?"

"The park," he replied, and a secret look that always infuriated Ella passed between them.

"What's this obsession with the park?" Ella interrupted, looking from her mother to her father with fierce curiosity. "You're always there in the morning, and you're always out at night."

"We'll explain when we get there," Ninde repeated, sounding stressed. Ella started to interrupt again. Her mother stopped in her tracks and turned around. "Ella. Leave it." She put an arm through Gold-Eye's and continued to walk. Ella sighed and looked to Drum, who shrugged before following. Ella joined him, hands in her pockets and a sour expression on her face.

"They never tell us anything." she said quietly. "Even last summer, when I had that vision of them dying – they never told us what it was about."

"Just trust them," Drum said patiently to his slightly younger sibling. "They must have a good reason for not telling us."

"It's something to do with what I see, isn't it?" Ella murmured, making it sound more like a statement than a question. "But it can't be real. That can't have happened to them. I mean, I know it's odd that we have powers, but that can't have happened. It's too..it's too.."

"Sci fi?" Drum suggested, grinning a little. "Look. Mum and Dad are different to most people, we know that. Dad gets enough stick about his eyes without people knowing about what we can do. Haven't you ever wondered why they're like that?"

"Well yeah, of course I have. But they won't tell us. I just don't get what it is – it's all so confusing. Cavanagh Park, Dad's eyes, Mum's ability, my ability, your ability – this warehouse they're taking us to, these people we've never heard of. I don't even know where to begin to connect them."

"Ella," Drum said quietly, and she looked up at him. "You remember last year, when those protesters were outside City Hall?"

"Yeah, and Mum and Dad were angry at them..are you saying..they had something to do with that?"

"Maybe. They were so angry – and they knew some of them-" he stopped abruptly.

"We're here?" Ella walked forwards to join her parents as they stood by the door to the warehouse. It was fairly big and looked abandoned, judging by the shattered glass and the slate grey wooden and groaning exterior, a worn and old structure. The only exception to this scheme was that the main door was a rather large, solid frame, with a gun-metal sliding mechanism at about eye height, the kind in prison films."This is it?" she watched with interest as Ninde approached the door and knocked three times. There was silence for a moment and then an ugly screeching sound as the metal was pulled back, revealing a small, dark gap in the door. As Ella peered closer a pair of dark green, suspicious eyes appeared, peering at them in turn.

"Jackie, it's just us." Gold-Eye snapped, sounding impatient. "Let us in."

"What are they doing here?" came the muffled voice from the other side of the door, sharply.

"Ella's had a vision – a bad vision. The one we've been waiting for."

The metal slid back and the eyes disappeared, and then there was the sound of the large, concrete door scraping back from the frame, swinging slowly open to reveal Jackie.

She was tall, with long, straight red hair, the colour that leaves go in autumn. Her eyes were small and she stood with her hands on her hips, extremely thin and gangly. She had the appearance of someone without much grace – her back was bent towards them and her long face ended with a sharp chin. She was so stiff that one expected her to creak as she moved, like a tree in the wind. She waved them inside with a bony hand.

"Come in, finally."

Ella and Drum stared around at the room and tried to avoid Jackie's interested, scrutinising gaze. The warehouse was quite large on the inside, a mostly empty and cold space, with the exception of a collection of space heaters that were on full-blast, ranging from small to quite large. Ella frowned as she examined the heaters.

"They're not plugged in," Ella said, holding up a plug and then dropping it abruptly. "OW!"

"Don't touch them." Jackie said sharply, ushering Ella out the way. As Ella peered closer, the wires appeared to be glowing with electricity.

"Jackie's good with conducting things." Drum deduced, and Jackie smiled. Ella looked from Jackie to the space heaters.

"That's your talent? How do you manage the energy?"

"That's practice." Jackie looked to Gold-Eye. "Talent? They don't know, do they?"

"No, we haven't told them..where's Mara?" Jackie's face went from smug to saddened as she gazed in the direction of a small alcove made of mattresses and a tattered red armchair that faced away from them, taking most of the heat from the space heaters. As Ella watched, a girl's head appeared as she tipped back into the chair. Her hair was a bushy and a vibrant, cherry red - obviously dyed. The girl stood up and disappeared into the alcove only to appear a moment later around the other side of it. Ella looked worriedly to Drum, who was studying the girl intently.

She stood quite still, one hand on the mattress next to her. She was quite small and curvy, and had very little presence, unlike Jackie. One hand dangled at her side, and an oversized, cream coloured jumper almost covering up to the tips of her fingers. She wore black skinny jeans which made her appearance look even smaller.

Her most dominant feature, however, was a large, off-white bandage that covered her eyes and most of her nose, disappearing under her crimson hair. There was no way that she could see a thing under it.

"Mara. How are you feeling?"

"Better. Thanks, Gold-Eye." She turned towards him when she spoke – evidently the bandage didn't cover her ears. "Are these your kids?"

"How did you know we were here?" Ella spluttered. Drum elbowed her. Mara smiled before stepping into the path of the space heaters again.

"I can hear you, and I can smell you, and I can sense you. Nice perfume, by the way."

Ella looked to Gold-Eye and noticed that her mother had disappeared into a small room off the side of the warehouse that contained a desk, scattered with paper and files as well as a small TV. It flickered on as Ella looked at it – she looked to Jackie, who smiled. The TV flicked off.

"Mara sees things when she takes the blindfold off."

"It's more a curse than a talent. I don't see how it benefits anybody-"

Suddenly a loud BANG echoed through the warehouse, and then again. Jackie ran to the concrete door again and pulled back the window. A space heater nearer to Ella flickered off as the door swung slowly open, squeaking on well poorly oiled hinges.

"Oh god, not again." A smile lit Jackie's face as she spoke. "I told you we should have left them. They're complete idiots."

A small, white-blonde-haired girl emerged into the doorway, ice blue eyes looking worriedly up at Jackie. As Ella squinted, she saw an arm, a boy's arm, quite dark and limp, on her shoulder. The girl fully stepped into the room, appearing to be half supporting the boy next to her, who had sagged quite dramatically onto her smaller frame, eyes closed. She appeared to be struggling under his weight as Jackie appeared from the shadowy entranceway, accompanied by a mountain of a man – he was taller than Jackie, his frame almost concealing the entranceway as he stepped into the room. He had tightly defined muscles that seemed to burst from his t-shirt and a large, sharply-defined face. Beside him was a man who appeared to be violently drunk, leaning heavily onto the larger man. Beside the larger man he looked like a limpet clinging to a rock. He had quite long brown hair that disappeared into a too-big tan coat that was lined with fake fur in the hood, and nearly dropped to the edge of his brown cowboy boots. He didn't raise his head.

"Frank, Saskia." Gold-Eye nodded to the larger man, Frank, and the smaller girl, Saskia. He grinned a little as his eyes fell on the drunk man. "Kenny been out all night again?" The man moaned in response.

Saskia's eyes were wide as she watched the dark-skinned boy start to come around. Jackie pushed him up onto his feet.

"Jun? You ok?" Saskia tried to hold him up as he nearly fell down again. Jackie slapped him.

"Ow!" Jun straightened up, glaring at Jackie. His dark hair fell over one eye. He was lean and tall, but not as tall or as gangly as Jackie. Ella stared at a particularly vivid tattoo on his arm of two entwined dragons, their tails touching the crook of his elbow - Saskia looked over to Gold-Eye and finally noticed Ella and Drum hovering in the background.

"Oh. Hello."

Ella looked to Gold-Eye.

"What the HELL is GOING ON?"


	3. Chapter 2: Powers and Plans

**Hi guys, I know it's been a really long time. Don't worry, I have the next chapter almost written. It will not take as long to post this next time. Enjoy!**

Ella unstacked a chair from the mattress alcove and sat down. She stared down her father coughed and looked to the slumped figure of Kenny, who murmured into the seat as he slept, smelling faintly of alcohol and cigarettes. Jackie glared pointedly at him as if her gaze alone would wake him up. Drum wondered if she could transfer energy to her eyes, resulting in some sort of laser effect. He smiled to himself, watching his father, whose eyes flickered between him and his sister. Ninde leaned slightly towards Gold-Eye, her legs crossed. The business-like expression on her face was slightly undermined by the way her fingers twitched on her kneecaps now and again, a habit Drum had easily learnt to read.

"Ella, um," Gold-Eye began, stuttering a little. He never had been very eloquent. "Ninde and I haven't told you about..about the team."

"They're a team now, are they?" Ella interrupted sharply, looking irritated. Ninde shot her a pointed glare and she backed down a little, shifting her hands to her sides. She got up, pacing around the circle.

"Well yes..you know about the Change." It was a statement that confused Ella and Drum, who looked to each other silently. Gold-Eye followed their gaze. "We told you stories when you were little..the monsters – you asked about the visions.."

Ella nodded, frowning as she paused from her angry pacing and leaned on the back of Drum's chair.

"You know that we have talents – and we told you that we're not all like other people. But..these are a few that we found directly after the Projector was destroyed."

"Wait," Ella interrupted, "You told us that after the Projector was destroyed, all the people came back."

"That's the shortened version." Ninde explained, sitting up. "In reality, after the Projector was destroyed the city was just the same. Of course, the Wingers and the Trackers and the- did we tell you about the Myrmidons? - Anyway, the people – the adults – didn't come back for three days, on the buses. We think from a holding facility somewhere near the mountains, but nobody could really remember.. we shut the Meat Factory and locked it up, and then I think a couple of years later the government demolished it and cornered it off. But we found Saskia near there."

The girl in question pulled her legs up to perch on the edge of the chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her blue eyes flickering to Ninde's, looking haunted. "Then we found Jackie, Kenny and Frank in the University car park." Jackie's stare intensified as Kenny snored on. "Then Jun a day later, in one of the old laboratory facilities. Kenny found Mara in one of the science facilities about the same time.."

"Are there any more?" Ella asked sharply, "Anything else you've been lying to us about?"

"No, not that we know of. Just us ten." Ninde shot her daughter a glare.

"We were planning to tell you, really, we were. But this vision you had, it's important. Vitally important."

Ella looked around the room warily, eyes meeting every open pair in the room before looking back.

"Do they know everything I've ever had a vision of?" she asked quietly, sitting down heavily. Ninde nodded, a guilty expression on her face.

"We needed to keep track of what you'd seen. Ella.." Ninde paused, looking to Gold-Eye. He shrugged. "Ella, your visions aren't of the future. They're of the past – the things you saw – they've already happened. We were there. They happened – they happened to us."

"But I've never seen you in them – what do you mean – do you mean that..vision I had..of the Lottery-"

"..Yes. That was me," Ninde admitted uncomfortably, shifting in her seat. She hastily changed the subject. "You can somehow see into our past, I don't know why you, I mean look at Drum - he can fly. That's nothing like what we can do. I..we don't know why. But what's even more confusing is that technically none of us should have powers anymore. They were supposed to go away when the projectors were destroyed..just like the Overlords were."

"Ninde!" Jackie reprimanded, transferring her glare to her. Ninde glared back. "We don't know if it's them or not."

"They would have found out sooner or later. Besides, we're not sure of anything. It's just a theory." Ninde protested, looking sulky. "We just know that we haven't lost our powers, which means there's still something happening – something's still generating change energy."

"You think the Overlords are still around?" Drum asked tensely, folding his arms.

"Maybe. I don't know how they can operate like this – maybe in the background? I don't know..we don't know what happened to them after the projectors were destroyed..but if they are still around.."

"What do you mean, if they are still around?" Ella interrupted yet again. Ninde shifted, looking uncomfortably to Jackie. She turned to Ella, gaze sharp.

"We're not sure. We don't know who they are. They could be anybody..they're human, after all. It's not like we've got the technology to track down people with talents..well..we used to." She looked to Jun, still unconscious on a mattress that had been pulled off the top of the stack. He was curled in on himself like a child – the vivid colours and patterns of his tattoos on his arms masked his face. Saskia looked to Jackie, and a secret look passed between them. Then Jackie nodded, ever so slightly, and Saskia's head drooped.

"What's she doing?" Ella asked, shooting a look at the silent, pale girl who was shaking slightly on the rickety chair. Jackie held up a hand to Ella, palm flat, watching Saskia carefully. Gradually she curled a finger under, counting the seconds.

The heaters whirred down a setting as her concentration slipped a little. As Jackie's fingers slipped to three remaining, Frank silently put a hand on Saskia's shoulder. "If you all found each other and he can find people with talents, why aren't there more of you?" Ella interrupted. Jackie tensed, then let out an irritated breath.

"He used to be able to find people with talents," Jackie said tensely, eyes still on Saskia. "We found some, but.. some of them were bad, some of them died, and some of them.. some of them were kidnapped."

"Kidnapped?" Ella exclaimed. Jackie's head whipped around and she glared at her. "By who?"

"Please don't interrupt me, kid." Jackie frowned before continuing. "We think ex-Overlords. But we're not too sure-"

Saskia's head jerked up violently, her hair flipping back over her shoulders, eyes wide. She gasped, taking in a shuddery breath. "-Saskia?" Jackie asked quietly.

"I was only in for a second, but then he kicked me out – it's all darkness in there. He's back with the Myrmidons," she murmured. "He'll be awake soon."

"What do you mean, 'he kicked you out'? Who?" Ella looked from Saskia to Jun and back again.

"She was in his mind," Drum chipped in, sitting forwards.

"Saskia can go inside people's minds – actually inside, sort of.. it's sort of like her mind connects with theirs and she can wander through. It's easier when they're unconscious though, which happens a lot with this kid." Jackie jerked her head in the direction of Jun, who was beginning to stir.

"Why?" Ella asked as the boy in question began to rouse on the mattress. "Why is he unconscious a lot?"

"He lost his power." Jackie explained, almost stretched to the end of her patience. "When he tries to use it he ends up unconscious. He hasn't really got used to it yet, so he's always like this."

Saskia had moved over to the mattress while she was talking and was shaking Jun's shoulder with one pale hand, a contrast to his dark skin. He blinked a couple of times, brushing his dark hair out of his dark blue eyes. He shot a glare to her, she sat back onto the floor.

"Don't glare at me like that."

"Stay out of my head."

"And how else are you supposed to wake up?" she asked tensely, frowning. He merely shot her a dark look and sat up.

"I'm gonna get a cigarette. Anyone coming?" he stood up, brushing off his dark denim jeans and then pulling a pack out of his pocket. Saskia sat up and folded her arms over chest, glaring after him with a frown on her face as he strolled towards the backdoor of the warehouse. Ella's eyes followed his path interestedly.

The warehouse backdoor was off to the left side, thick and metal but covered by a thin red patterned curtain which Jun brushed out of the way. He pushed at the door as it swung open, sending a shrill squeak through the air as the hinges moved.

There was another door farther along the same wall. It was thinner and more worn, and it had a small grimy window. No light showed through from the other side.

Ella leaned towards Jackie, eyes still on Saskia as she turned to re-join the group from the mattress.

"What's up with them?"

"They're complicated." Jackie replied simply, a shrewd smile on her face.

"Well Daddy-o, what's the story?" she turned to Gold-Eye, who looked uncomfortable. "C'mon. You were only halfway through."

"I think we should leave some of it till another time." Ninde said sharply, still ruffled from the subject of the Lottery.

"Why now? It's been sixteen years – have you done anything?"

"Well sorry kid, but we've had lives to get on with," Jackie exclaimed, sounding annoyed. "We didn't want to remember, not when it had just finished, as far as we knew. Plus your mother was pregnant with you the minute we first met her, practically."

"Wait, so – how old are all of you?" Ella asked, squinting at Jackie, who glared at her, the space heaters whirring loudly in Ella's ears. Jackie murmured something involving the words 'impolite' and 'brat' to herself, folding her arms. Her eyes conveyed she was not going to say her age, ever.

"Thirty-six." Frank intoned, sitting with his feet out straight in front of him, heels pressing against the ground and arms crossed across a muscled chest. "Twenty back then."

The ages came slowly from the rest of the group. Jackie was thirty four, eighteen at the end of the Change. Kenny, she informed Ella, was thirty three. Mara was twenty-eight, twelve years old back then. Gold-Eye and Ninde were both thirty two, having been just sixteen, they thought, at the end. Saskia had been just three years old, nineteen now. Jun was twenty-six, having been 10 years old at the end of the Change.

The three youngest – Saskia, Jun and Mara – would have known no world before the change, born into a life of fighting and running and fear. All three were products of breeding facilities set up by the Overlords, and they had been born, raised, and tested in laboratories like rats.

Mara flinched at the memories, being the only one there old enough at the time to vaguely remember the horrific incidents that had plagued her childhood. Saskia looked queasy but not largely uncomfortable. She had been raised by Jackie, Frank, and Kenny, who lived together, after the Change had been turned back. Her mother and father could have been anybody she passed on the street.

If they were still alive.

"So.. why did you bring us here, now?" Ella asked.

"Well – we need more people. With Jun out of action, we thought we might be able to team you two up. We think there's a facility somewhere near the mountains – the one the Overlords used as a holding cell. Maybe some sort of brain washing centre." Jackie gestured to Drum. "You can search over the city – it's too big and too dangerous for us to scour ourselves."

"Too dangerous?" Drum questioned, confused.

"The mountains area is an established military base. The only way we can get close enough is for you to fly over – or go through the tunnels. But we need to know the size of the forces in the base." Jackie explained, sounding strained.

"You're kidding – I'd have to hide in a cloud bank. I wouldn't be able to see anything." Drum exclaimed.

"You don't need to get that close – Ella's already seen the facility in a past vision. We know what it looks like. We just need to know that it's there, and what's guarding it. Then we can find out what's in it." Jackie grinned eagerly. Frank rolled his eyes.

"I've seen it already?" Ella cut in, interested.

"Don't interrupt!" Jackie snapped, her patience reaching evaporation point. Ella leaned back, offended. "I was going to say that all of your visions are memories. The memories of the people in the Change-" Ella opened her mouth to interrupt again. "Don't you dare." Jackie told her. "We don't know why or how. Our plan is to infiltrate the brainwashing centre and find out what's going on. If it is a brainwashing facility we can maybe find a way to unlock everyone's memories."

"There are more maybes in this plan than I remember." Ninde muttered.

"Whether the kidnapped people are there or not, something else is going on, and we don't like it."


	4. Chapter 3: Introducing

Thanks again to my wonderful beta, the Disputable Writer. I hope you guys remember some of the characters included in this chapter from the old fic. :)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gold-Eye, Ninde, Ella, Drum, RadarVision or the Change. These are the property of Garth Nix and the US Government.**

The hum of the cooling fans droned through the large concrete bunker. Avery couldn't stand the sound. She'd been trapped in this warehouse for weeks with nothing to do but fix the generator and play with the rats.

She was currently focusing her energy on a large black rat. It's mind was easy to manipulate as she saw the world through it's yellowed eyes, possessing it's mind to explore the dark and shadowy corners and vents of the building. She knew it inside out by now.

Spotting a smaller brown rat scuttling under a fuse box, she watched as the rat limped towards it, making it thirsty for bloodshed with her talent.

The battle was long and torturous. Avery preferred to push the rats to the edge of death, then let them get a little way away before killing them. However, with the dying squeal of the brown rat ringing in the black rats ears, Avery was bored again. She let the black rat go, bemused and bleeding, to disappear into a vent.  
Sighing, she stood up, stretched and looked around.

Victor was still asleep on the makeshift mattress on the other side of the warehouse. She loved to frighten him into a fight. The brute could never catch her.

She looked to her only other source of entertainment – herself, reflected in the cracked and dirty mirror across the hall in the old changing room for the workers. She folded out her wings, at least five foot wide, and stared at them in disgust. They were a dirty orange, leathery and made her look nothing like an angel. They had been surgically meshed to her scapula when she was young. They didn't look natural at all, too far apart to be something drawn with beauty in mind, no matter how much artistic license was employed.

One of the Overlords first experiments, Avery had been trained to fly in battle and command a flight of Wingers. But the Wingers weren't team players, and the yawning gap in communication between the species had put Avery on the Failed Experiment List. She'd been kept useful by passing messages between Overlords, but after everyone came back she'd been an outcast, a freak. She'd wandered, found Victor, and they'd become a duo of petty criminals, robbing stores for food and money.

Then Alex had found them.

It had been downhill since then.

Turning back to her reflection, she grimaced at the sight of her eyes. They were alien. Winger eyes, slits for pupils, an unnatural green-gold. This was what the Overlords had done to her – made her a freak, unable to fit in with humans. Not a human anymore. To Avery, this meant human rules were exempt to her. So it hadn't been a problem, being Alex's assassin.  
At first, she'd felt a little guilty. But Alex's talent for manipulating her, and her anger towards the Overlords had transformed her into an immoral monster.

"Victor." she called him, now standing over his frame, slumped on the mattress, snoring loudly. "Victor. Get up, you lazy git." He may have had the strength of a gorilla, but he slept like a sloth. Avery thought it was the steroids he'd been fed. Or the lack of them. "VICTOR!" she yelled, kicking him awake.

"Shiggmf- What?" he looked around, bleary eyed. "Shit, Ave, what the hell do you want?"  
"To hear something other than your snoring." she smiled deceivingly, watching him pull himself up. "I'm bored." she beamed now, like a child.

"For gods sake Avery.." he glared at her.

"Go on. Go for it. Just try and hit me." she smiled even wider. "Show me what your ugly chunk of a body can do." he snarled, but wouldn't touch her, and she knew it. The last and first time he'd tried to hit her she'd been in his mind in a second. She'd invaded his memories, twisting them into nightmares. It was how they'd met, actually. Getting him mad was her favourite game. He could never hit her.

"Avery. Get lost." The sound of Alex's voice made her stiffen and automatically walk backwards into the shadows, leaving Victor smirking. "Victor. Get over here." he lurched over to the tall, skeletal figure of Alex, who's intimidating presence was stifling. He looked like he could be pushed over by a strong gust of wind, but his physical appearance gave no suggestion to how powerful his mind was. His influence was infectious, quite literally – the minute Avery had met him she had felt sick, and since then she had not been able to disobey him in anything.

Victor and Alex had a whispered conversation while Avery crouched in the shadows, wings folded behind her. She watched suspiciously, eyes narrowed. Victor had hunched his shoulders and stooped a little in Alex's presence. It was odd, seeing a man so obviously strong cower in the shadow of a smaller and physically weaker man. "Avery." Alex commanded, motioning her over. Avery once again lost control of her limbs and stumbled towards him. She loathed the feeling of his presence controlling her, unable to resist. Her weak mind couldn't resist the lure. It made her feel violated. She could argue what she did was similar – but Avery limited, unable to actually control the limbs of a person, and only able to control one person at a time. But Alex kept her around – His power only planted the impulse in their head, and strong minds could resist it. Avery could change and manipulate the mind fully, while Alex used his supernatural influence to persuade them into doing his will, not matter how much they objected in their mind.

"Fargo says there's someone coming soon, to check out the compound. From the air." he looked to Avery with a sadistic grin. But that was his usual grin. "So I guess you're on patrol duty. Don't send us any suicidal birds this time."

The thrum of the heaters had slowed and the warehouse had gotten noticeably colder as Jackie had led them over to the back storeroom at the south wall of the warehouse. She had a sizeable grin on her face. By this time Kenny had woken up, and was following them, still moaning about his head and the many bruises Jackie had given him as her 'expression of joy' that he was once again, drunk.

"Get out," she snapped at him, ushering Ella, Drum, Ninde and Gold-Eye into the now lit room as the light bulb flickered on without anybody flipping a switch. The door closed behind them. The store room was long with a high ceiling, shelves lining the walls. Most of them were empty – though the collected artefacts from the Change that the gang had collected over the years was a rather sizeable amount. Ella stared out into the darkness that seemed to extend forever. "Now here, we have the best thing since sliced bread," said Jackie, ignored the snickers from Ella and Drum, "We've managed to salvage a device that Shade built..." She held up a helmet to Drum, who inspected it closely. Ella was about the flick the top when Jackie slapped her hand away.

"It's like those helmets I saw in my visions..." Ella murmured as Jackie tossed the helmet back and forth in her hands.

"It's a Disruptor – it can suppress your powers, though there were a couple of kinks with the vibration and the batteries.. - at the moment, I can power it, so we can use it if we need to." She turned to set the helmet back on the shelf. "This is actually what I was looking for." She held out an ugly, oversized pair of glasses with a grin. "Actual infrared glasses. You'll look like an escapee from the optician's, but they work." She passed them to Drum, stretching the strap over his head as he pulled them down over his eyes. Drum stared around, seeing the bright light from Jun's cigarette sputter and go out as Saskia's foot stomped on it outside, as well as the forms of Mara, Frank and Kenny in the warehouse.

"I can see everyone."

"Its RadarVision – we found it in one of the old military buildings just before the Change was turned back. The battery only lasts around 90 minutes, so we'll need to be careful about when you input the battery pack. Unfortunately, we're completely screwed if the warehouse is made of metal. Anyone who goes into a metal room can't be seen. But we're all set, we just need to know how many are in there. I don't know how close you'll have to get to see, but hopefully not too close." She reached out for the goggles as Drum tugged them off his head. He was grinning, as was Ella.

"Jacks, can I talk to you for a minute?" Ninde asked, ushering Ella and Drum out the room. They sighed, rolling their eyes and going to meet Kenny and the gang. Ninde shut the door behind them, folding her arms. "I don't think I'm comfortable with this. Drum's just a kid, what if he gets attacked-"

"Ninde, you were just kids when we were wandering around for Shade," Jackie pointed out, "You got attacked plenty of times. You dealt with it. They need to learn."

"Jackie, it's not the Change now. Everything's normal, and they're my kids. Mine, and I don't want them doing something this dangerous!" Ninde threw up her arms, exasperated with Jackie's paranoia.

"What if it is the Change? What if the Overlords are still here, trying to get a grasp back on all of us? Anyway, even if life is normal they need to learn to defend themselves. It may not be the Change but it's still dangerous." Jackie argued, tucking the helmet under her arm.

"I'm not comfortable with this, either," Gold-Eye interrupted, putting an arm around Ninde. "Ninde's right. They could get hurt."

"You've been stopping them from knowing about this for years, and look what it's done to them. They've felt like freaks for years because you didn't tell them the truth. We need to know." Jackie narrowed her eyes, stubborn streak showing through.

"I don't know Jackie, I don't like it. Let me sleep on it."

That night, back at home, Drum stared out from his covers to the floor, watching the way the shadows moved in the light as the storm whipped the tree branch outside against the window pane, making the shadow of the branch move across the rug and back towards him. The clarity of the night and the lack of sleep was making him reconsider his snap decision to help out a group of strangers that he'd met just yesterday with something he had no idea about. He was risking it, he knew – using his power in public like that. He'd hardly ever used it himself. His parents always loved to recall the story about when he was five and he'd suddenly started levitating in the middle of the kitchen. It masked the times when Ella's power showed the ugly side of Talents: the unexplainable nightmares and the strange dreams she'd told him about when she was young. Now they knew it was reality. It was mind-blowing, to think that their parents had been through something like that. If it was anyone else, Drum wouldn't have believed them.

But the pieces fit.

He turned on to his side again, glancing over to Ella's side of the room. She still had nightmares occasionally, but she was quiet tonight.

"Can't sleep?" her voice was a whisper from under her duvet. Drum sat up.

"No. I don't know what to do."

"Drum, they need us. This is what we've got these powers for – to help. I know its scary – I mean, these complete strangers know every vision I've ever had. Mum and Dad were there. It happened to them." She pulled the covers off her bed and moved to sit on the rug, reaching for the small mushroom night

light that she had under her bed. The white light from it lit up her face in the darkness and scattered the shadows. "I just keep thinking about all the visions I've had – they were real. The horrible things that have happened to them, that they never told us about." Drum moved to sit opposite her and they both sat in tense silence as they heard their dad snoring from the next room. "I can see why they never told us," she murmured, making circles on the rug, "And they why never showed us those tapes they have in that box in the attic – obviously there must be something about the Change on them. Drum, if we can help stop this – you know, they're worried that it's going to come back, all those horrible things," she shuddered, and Drum looked to the dark space under the dresser where he knew the small crayon drawing of a Myrmidon lurked. "Then I want to help. I don't want it all to come back. You've read the journal, you know what I saw." The dark circles under her eyes were evidence of that. He still remembered the time when she was eight and she had stopped sleeping in an effort to stop the visions. It hadn't worked, of course. "Mum and Dad trust them."

"But Ella," Drum cut in, touched by his sisters unwavering faith in their parents, no matter what she had said earlier, "They lied to us, and they hid it from us."

"I don't care!" she said, and Drum saw the telltale flash of tears in his sisters eyes. "I don't want it back, you haven't Seen, you don't know!"

Downstairs, the remaining two of the family were also awake, having been jolted awake by Ella's outburst. They instinctively moved together, a reflex trained from direct experience of the Change. Ninde sat up, worrying.

"I don't think we should let him do this."

"I know you don't. But I think we should let him make his own choice," Gold-Eye murmured, wary of incurring Ninde's wrath. She didn't flare up as often as she used to, having mellowed during motherhood, but occasionally there was a flash of her old temper.

"But it's dangerous! You want to send our child into a potential nest of god knows what, military forces and Overlords and everything!" She was more worried than angry.

"Nin, we need to know, and Drum can do it. He's a careful boy, he won't get hurt," Gold-Eye tried to reassure.

"You can't know that!" Ninde flared, sounding panicked, "What if something happens to him? I'll never forgive them – I'll never forgive me."

"Ninde, I know, I'm worried too, but we've told them now, and they're old enough to be independent of us. It's his decision, whatever he decides. If there is something out there, we need to know, and Drum might be our only chance."

"Ok." Downstairs and upstairs, both Ninde and Drum echoed the same words. "But I'm not happy about this."


End file.
